The Netflix show, more than any other Marvel product, explores the idea that the country’s systems are fundamentally broken.

.. The Punisher, Netflix and Marvel’s new 13-episode drama about a superhero whose superpower is killing people with guns

.. Punisher, a former Marine Corps sniper, turned the merciless tactics of organized criminals against them, displaying no qualms about executing gangsters. He employed what amounted to an arsenal of military-grade weapons.

.. Hardcore fans of the comic-book Punisher, who include a large number of veterans and cops, love him because he’s simple. He takes no prisoners; he embodies eye-for-an-eye vengeance. The Punisher, though, wants to emphasize that it’s more complicated

—that Frank’s bleak agenda springs directly from the fact that all the systems he encounters are fundamentally broken.

.. It’s a fascinating indictment of the American government, which, the show argues, trains young men as killers and then casts them aside.

.. Without reliable institutions to believe in, The Punisher suggests, people create their own

.. “The system let Frank down in a big way,” Curtis explains at one point. “So he did what he was trained to do.”

.. What makes The Punisher most interesting, though, is that it’s clear Frank finds pleasure in killing. It’s the logical extension of all his years of training, the manifestation of his id, and it makes the most violent scenes more disturbing than heroic.